'This book flips your world upside down. Daniel Markovits argues that meritocracy isn't a virtuous, efficient system that rewards the best and brightest. Instead it rewards middle-class families who can afford huge investments in their children's education ... Frightening, eye-opening stuff' The Times, Books of the YearEven in the midst of runaway economic inequality and dangerous social division, it remains an axiom of modern life that meritocracy reigns ...

FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE REST OF OUR LIVESA SUNDAY TIMES TOP 100 NOVEL OF THE 21ST CENTURYWINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK MEMORIAL PRIZETen years out of Yale and drifting, Greg Marnier heads for his college reunion. There he bumps into an old friend, Robert James, now influential and wealthy from dotcom success. He has a plan: to buy up several abandoned neighbourhoods in Detroit and build a ne...